Wednesday, October 22, 2014

We’re Talking About Playoffs: The Actual End of the Whole Mess

ladymaggic.wordpress.com

The
playoffs began and ended for my team last night. By virtue of our less than
impressive regular season, we’d been granted a one game playoff against another
team who had a less than impressive regular season with the right to go into
the actual playoffs and likely get smoked by a bunch of professional amateur athletes
on the line.

There
was some concern as to whether or not we’d actually get the chance to play last
night due to looming thunderstorms, but as 6:30 rolled around, we bravely took
the field, ready to thumb our noses at Mother Nature and dare her to do sumptin’
about it. Well, that’s not exactly true. My team took to the field. I, on the
other hand, took to the bench. That’s right, an astonishing five games into my
return to softball, my team finally realized what many a gym teacher and little
league coach had long since known: I was most valuable defending the dugout and
offering words of encouragement to my teammates.

For the
first time all season we had an extra player, which meant the guys on the team
would have to rotate, one person always sitting. Wisely, I was the first person
chosen to sit and the team got off to a good start. I was also listed at 10th
in the batting order, right near the bottom, another smart strategy.

Let’s
talk about the offense first, because this is the part that’s least interesting.
First at bat, I work a five pitch walk. This is shocking because I have
honestly no clue what the strike zone looks like and since none of the pitches
were over my head or in the dirt, they were all ones I’d usually swing at. My
only explanation was that I was momentarily overcome by the magnitude of what I’d
done so far that season at the plate and thinking of all those infield singles
paralyzed me. Eventually I came around to score when one of my teammates hit a
ball deep into the outfield. My next at bat, I ripped a grounder right at the
third baseman or shortstop who couldn’t make a play on it, allowing me to
safely reach first on what I’ll go ahead and call an infield single.

And
that was it. Two plate appearances, one official at bat. We had kind of a rough
night at the plate and in the field last night as a team, so the game I believe
wrapped early.

Out in
the field. This was an adventure. After sitting the first inning, I was moved
back into my home in right center where I had to toss the ball into the infield
once or twice, but nothing major. Then something truly shocking and awful
happened. Something that sporting tacticians will debate for millennia to come:
I was put at third base. The hot corner. Chipper Jones’ living room. I’d gone
from playing a position that a napping groundhog could easily play to
potentially the hardest spot on the field.

In all
my years of playing sporting games with bases (baseball, softball, kickball, mat
ball) I can only remember not playing the outfield twice: Once was at a
baseball practice where I was allowed to play catcher. It was a disaster, I forgot
you were supposed to crouch and just kneeled the whole time and once when I went
to throw the ball back, I hit the top of the batting cage. The only other time I
was let out of the outfield was in kickball in gym class. I played second base
and was accused by the other team of cheating because I was blocking the base path.
The trouble was, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. I just thought I was
standing there, ready to play the ball. I had no concept of where the base path
was or my proximity to it. Rather than explain to me what I was doing wrong, my
wonderful gym teacher threatened to remove me from the game if I didn’t knock
it off because I guess she was bummed by life choices which led to her wearing
swishy pants to work every day.

My first
inning at third last night (yes, you read that right) was wildly uninteresting.
I didn’t do much, the ball never really came my way and I did my best to avoid
blocking the base paths whatever that meant.

I was
moved back to the outfield (left center this time) and spent a good deal of the
inning chasing down balls that were alternatingly hit over my head or twenty
feet in front of me.

Then it
was back to third because you know what they say about quitting: you should
never do it while you’re ahead. And in this inning the shit went screaming into
the fans. First batter drives a rocket of a grounder right at me, off the
middle finger on my throwing hand and into the outfield. Next batter drives a
slow grounder right at me. I pick it up and, with all the confidence of a guy
who belongs buried deep in right, threw to first. The ball had the distance.
What it also had was a wicked curve that saw it break away from the first
baseman and directly at the head of the poor sap who had mistakenly hit it in
my direction. Luckily she managed to make it to first without getting a
softball embedded in her left ear. At this point, with a play at third, the
shortstop had to direct me where to stand. It looked dangerously close to
blocking the base path, so I stepped back for fear of being shouted at by a
short chubby woman in swishy pants. I’m not bitter. The ball went into the
outfield and someone had to yell at me to get over and cover third since I was
still terrified to get too closed to the bag. Luckily, there was no play and
the rest of the inning went on without incident.

The
game ended shortly thereafter, our hopes for playoff glory dashed resoundingly.
Still, it was a noble effort to cap off a wonderful season which saw us win two
whole games, but more importantly, have a lot of fun in the process, if I may
be so sappy.

My
personal line for the year ended like this: six games played, 7-19 for a .368 batting
average, six runs scored, one walk, two catches on defense and at least two
errors from my time at third, maybe a few more from my time elsewhere. I also
managed no RBIs, three strikeouts and 0-2 with the bases loaded.

So,
what have I learned from all this? Is it that I should stop being so
pessimistic and to realize that I’m not so bad at softball that I could
accidentally throw the world headfirst into WWIII best case scenario or worst
case we go straight from me striking out to the apocalypse?

Of
course not. The lesson here is that we all got damn lucky and everyone should
pray extra hard that my team decides to skip softball in the spring and try
water polo or something, otherwise I may just play with them again and, if I do,
there is literally no telling how bad it could get. It’s like the great Yogi
Berra always said: “You’ve all been warned.”